Hassled in Hong Kong
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2008
1
52
55
Trip End
Nov 17, 2009
Hong Kong, China
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Finally at the door of the hostel we picked the nice little Chinese caretaker showed us to a small but really well set up room, we took it. we had arrived early afternoon so we got ourselves sorted in the calmness of our room then headed back down stairs for our first real taster of the town.
Back on the ground floor we grabbed a tasty pakora with a drink from a Pakistani stall then headed to the shore for our first sight of Hong Kong Island. The streets were busy and everyone wanted to sell us fake watches, handbags and suits. The roads were very busy so underpasses were the only option which became very confusing as underpasses became shopping centres and all sense of direction was lost. We eventually found the water front and had a wander along "the walk of the stars" where you see names on the floor just like Hollywood but Hong Kong style. As the light faded we headed over to the ferry terminal where we could check out the worlds biggest permanent light show! The commentary was a little cheesy but the light show was impressive. We saw lots of bad attempts to capture the moment on camera as everyone fought for a good position. After the show we headed back as we were pretty tired.
Next day we had a India visa to try and sort. A quick ferry ride over to Hong Kong island got us to the embassy, unfortunately we were unable to get our visa as we didn't have enough time. We then found ourselves with time to burn as we didn't have much else of a plan that day. We headed back over to Kowloon and headed up to Knutsford stepps for some food at one of the Chinese diners which were cheap and very tasty. We spent some time in the park after lunch before we started some of the shopping we needed to do before Bangladesh. We also found a Patagonia shop to pick up some genuine thermals for Nepal. Shopped out we headed back over on a boat to see Kowloon at dusk before heading back to check out the light show so we could appreciate it without having to take lots of pictures.
For our third day in Hong Kong we decided to go to the funicular tramway. We headed back over on the boat then up to the station to see "the steepest funicular in the world". Its really cool to see as its been there well over 100 years. From the top there is a great view back down over the city giving you a good perspective over the city. We had to do the now regular hanging around looking for someone who is good at photography so that we could get a good picture of us together, eventually finding a German guy with a very flashy camera.
That afternoon we went to try Dim Sum for the first time. We sat down in a nice looking restaurant overlooking the harbor front. Being complete novices to this we were handed our menu card and blindly started ticking boxes. Five minutes later the food started to turn up, some really good and one not so. Our favorite was a steamed bun filled with meat in gravy and our least favor ate was a log of black sesame flavored jelly. We finished the afternoon buying the last few things that we needed to pick up in Hong Kong. We headed up to the night market for tea that had every sort of fake thing imaginable. we grabbed some food and hung out at one of the street restaurants to see
For our final day in Hong Kong we decided to head out to ride one of the many trams on the island. With a lazy start we walked over to the ferry terminal. As we headed through the underpass to the terminal we had one of the biggest surprises of our trip so far. Walking the other way was James and Carol who we had last seen in Barilloche all the way back in Argentina. To recap. I used to work with James, we knew James and Carol were traveling around south America for a while. The crazy thing was they had decided to head to China so they had flown that morning from L.A. We couldn't believe how lucky we were to run into each other so we headed back up to the Stepps where they could get some food and we could catch up. We had lots to talk about and it was cool that we could show them good cheap places to eat. After they had a good meal we arranged to meet up later as they needed to catch up on some sleep. We headed back out on our original plan and caught a tram heading east enjoying the ride and views. We returned on another tram then went to find James and Carol. We would meet up for a final meal before we had to get our flight on to Bangladesh that night.
We found a very sleepy looking James back at their hostel and headed out back up to the stepps as the food is cheap. We did yet more catching up and exchanging of information and enjoyed a last bowl of noodle soup with won ton. We returned back to the mansions where we said our farewells and we grabbed our bags to head back to the airport.
The airport was really modern and organized so as we checked in it was funny to see the madness of the airlines from other developing countries airlines around us. Just across from us at Nigeria Airways there were ques of guys with huge boxes that we later found were full of mobile phones. It was funny to see that each person had about three washing machine sized boxes to check in. I'm glad i didn't work there.
Checked in we headed to the gate to await our flight to Dhaka
